Search: China Fake Gold + Fraud RECAP

02 China, 03 India, 04 Indonesia, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Searches

2004 Seagrave (US/FR) Interview with Sterling and Peggy Seagrave on Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold

Journal: $750 Billion Wall Street Scam, Russian Anger, Chinese Intent, We are NOT Making This Up!

Journal: Banks’ Foreclosure ‘Robo-Signers’ Were Hair Stylists, Teens, Walmart Workers–Lawsuit

Journal: China May Demand Physical Gold

Journal: Chuck Spinney Highlights Labor Day in a Kleptocracy

Journal: Fake Gold Bars from China to India, Made in the USA–Federal Reserve and Bank of NY Accused–Meanwhile, Prison Planet and Bullion Vault Say No

Journal: Five Myths Debunked–Treasury Run by Crooks

Journal: Nine Under-Reported Stories on Bank Fraud

Journal: US Govenment Accepts Fraud as “Normal”

Journal: US Government Party to $4 Trillion Fraud

Journal: US Rubin-Summers Tungsten Gold Round II

Journal: Wall Street Scam Collateral Damage II

Reference: Alternative Views of 9/11–Massive US Financial & Gold Fraud & 240 Billion Covert Fund Against Russia

Reference: US Intelligence & Global Banking

Review: Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism

Review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

Review: National Suicide: How Washington Is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z

Review: Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

Review: Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

Worth a Look: Gold Fraud, Gold Paper

Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Corporations, Government, History, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

Mikhail  Gorbachev, who has been neutralized by the succession of Russian rulers, especially Putin) has just advised President Obama to get out of Afghanistan.  Jonathan Steele suggests here (also attached below) that Obama ought to heed that advice, because Obama is in a similar albeit somewhat worse position than Gorbachev was in 1985-6.

Analogies are dangerous, because they can capture your thinking and take you off the cliff.  But here goes.

If Steele's analogy is accurate, it suggests some pregnant ramifications that are not addressed directly by Steele:  Russia (Putin and Medvedev) appear to be helping US/Nato in Afghanistan with training programs and by providing access routes for northern logistics lines of communication.  This cooperation serve both parties by improving relations in the short term, but it also helps US/Nato stay on its disastrous course in Afghanistan.  Are there other reasons why would Putin, an ardent nationalist, would what the US to remain stuck in Russia's backyard?

Russia needs help in staunching spillover of Sunni radicalism into its Moslem areas and its Central Asian sphere of influence (a variation of the original reason USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979).  The US war on the Taliban serves that interest. So from Putin's point of view, keeping US/Nato bogged down in Afghanistan serves Russian national interests for free.

Putin, a former member of the KGB and an ardent nationalist, certainly knows the US fomented Sunni extremism in Afghanistan to sucker the Soviets into invading Afghanistan with the aimed of bogging the USSR down in its own VietNam-like quagmire (a policy proudly acknowledged by President Carter's National Security Advisor,Zbigniew Brzezinski in his notorious interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, January 1998). Putin must also know that the US/Nato engagement in Afghanistan, is (1) a huge resource drain that is weakening US economically and militarily, as well as  (2) weakening the bonds giving the US political control over its Nato allies.  From his point of view, these two outcomes would certainly improve Russia's relative power with respect to Europeans (especially Germany) and in the world, at the expense of the US.  Moreover, in Putin's eyes, these outcomes might seem to be justified as payback to the US.  After all, did not the US unleash the Islamic radicalism with its efforts to maneuver the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979 and did not the US humiliate Russia by the exploiting Russia's economic misery and military weaknesses, after Gorbachev had done the the US and the West a huge favor by precipitating collapse of the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War without bloodshed?

So, who should Obama and his advisors listen to?  Putin the nationalist and go for a short term political gain at expense of remaining stuck in the quagmire that serves Russia's interests, or Gobachev the statesman who advises Obama to bite the bullet and absorb short-term political pain to gain long term benefits of exiting a quagmire that is weakening the US economically and militarily?

Of course the war advocate could counter by saying this is based on an analogy run amok.  We are not making the gross mistakes the Soviets made in Afghanistan, and besides, it is cutting and running that weakens us.  After all, Gobachev is just an old man who refuses to see that his time has past and is struggling futilely to remain relevant.

Russia's Afghan agenda | Jonathan Steele

guardian.co.uk 10/27/10 10:00 PM Jonathan Steele

Gorbachev has valuable advice for the US on the war in Afghanistan that Putin would rather he keep to himself

The surprise in this week's reports that Russia is planning to help Nato in Afghanistan by training Afghan helicopter pilots is that people are surprised. Memories are short, it seems, for the shift in Moscow's line came as early as July last year during Barack Obama's first summit in the Kremlin.

Designed to press the “reset” button after east-west tempers flared over the war in Georgia, the meeting ended with several agreements, the most dramatic of which was Russia's nod for the US to send military supplies across Russian territory to its forces in Afghanistan. Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin wanted to give Obama a reward for taking a calmer view of Russia than George Bush, in particular for accepting Georgia's share of blame in the South Ossetian crisis and for cancelling the most provocative aspects of Bush's missile defence scheme which Moscow viewed as a threat.

Read rest of Jonathan Steele's article….

See Also (RECAP)

Continue reading “Journal: Putin to Obama–Stay in Afghanistan + RECAP”

Journal: India Strike on Pakistan Grows More Likely

03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water, Officers Call

India-Pakistan: According to a 109 page Indian interrogation report of the Pakistani-American jihadist, David Headley, officers through senior field grade ranks in Pakistan's intelligence services were involved directly in the 2008 Mumbai militant attacks and intended to control a further split in Kashmir-based militant groups by providing them with a victory, The Guardian reported yesterday, 18 October.

Headley, a Pakistani American originally named Daood Gilani, undertook surveillance missions of the LeT targets in the 2008 Mumbai operation, He said he regularly reported to the ISI, but the Indian interrogation report suggests that supervision of the terrorists by the ISI was often chaotic. Headley also opined that the senior officers of the agency were unaware of the Mumbai operation beforehand.

According to the Indian interrogation report and The Guardian, Headley said he met once with a Pakistan Army “Colonel Kamran” and had a series of meetings with two majors named “Sameer Ali” and “Iqbal” from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). A fellow terrorist met with Colonel Shah.” At least one of eight surveillance missions in India as paid for by the ISI, who paid him $25,000.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The Guardian does not admit that the Indian interrogation report might have been leaked deliberately. In any event, the publication of key excerpts will help justify to the international community the grounds for Indian suspicions and caution in dealing with Pakistan.

Headley might have told the truth, but the Pakistanis he dealt with certainly did not use their real names or affiliations. Headley's confession of involvement in the Mumbai attacks is sufficient to convince India that Pakistanis and Pakistan itself bear ultimate responsibility for the more than 160 dead in Mumbai in 2008.

The most plausible statement by Headley is that he was told the reason for the Mumbai attacks was to unite Kashmiri militant factions that were splintering and to move militant activity out of Pakistan and against India. Otherwise, Headley has a bit for Pakistan and a bit for India.

His allegations, as reported, will reinforce India's conviction that Pakistani officials continue to support the anti-Indian Islamic terrorists. On the other hand, Pakistanis will see other comments as exonerating the Pakistani government from blame by perpetuating the notion of rogue operations within the Pakistani intelligence service.

Any long time student of the Pakistani military hierarchy knows that rogue operations by serving senior field grade officers are all but impossible. Headley told his interrogators what they wanted to hear and hardened viewpoints already set in stone.

Phi Beta Iota: Pakistan is not Israel, India is not the USA, and Mumbai is not the USS Liberty.  All signs point to a major decisive Indian attack on Pakistan.  As our esteemed colleague notes, there is no such thing as a “rogue” element among Pakistani military officers.  They got used to fooling the Americans working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), ripping the USA off of billions intended for Afghanistan, and got cocky about fooling India.  Right about now, we hope someone in India is planning the complete eradication of the ISI Headquarters building, in a replay of the successful and measured attack by the USA on the Libyan intelligence headquarters.  If Pakistan has a brain, it will eat this one and stand down.  At the same time, India needs to be smarter about a regional water authority–Kashmir is about water, not about ethnic anything.

Journal: Deja Vu on FBI Ignoring Advance Warnings

03 India, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Officers Call
NYT on FBI Failure (Again)

Years before 26/11, Headley wives told US of his LeT links (Indian Express)

FBI ignored Headley wife's warning on LeT (Times of India)

U.S. Had Warnings on Plotter of Mumbai Attack (New York Times)

FBI knew Headley had LeT links in 2005 (Hindustani Times)

Phi Beta Iota: The FBI has two walk-ins on 9/11 in advance of the event, one in Newark, NJ and the other in Orlando, FL.  In both instances, because the FBI did not recognize any of the names being reported, it blew off the walk-in.  Something similar appears to have happened here, BUT there is also yet another instance of a US person being in the employ of the US Government (similar to the botched car bomb attack on the World Trade Center) and their activities being a) sanctioned by one US agency and b) not being reported to other US agencies or to allies.  The US secret world is HOSED strategically, operationally, tactically, and technically….. it is cultural “unfit for duty.”   We continue to believe that an Open Source Agency and a Multinational Decision-Support Centre with reach-back to at least 90 countries is the way to kick-off 21st Century Intelligence.  See the Virtual Cabinet series at the Huffington Post for the larger context within which we believe US intelligence must be reinvented.

Journal: BRICS Innovate Externally Not Internally

01 Brazil, 02 China, 03 India, 06 Russia, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Full Story Online

How BRIC Innovators Will Defeat You

11:13 AM Thursday October 14, 2010

For reasons yet unclear, BRIC companies and entrepreneurs now consume roughly half my professional time. The Brazilian, Russian, Indian, and Chinese (BRIC) managers I meet are as sharp, credentialed, energetic, and hungry as their Silicon Valley or Rte. 128 counterparts. Sometimes their English is even better. They desperately want to be world-class innovators.

These people aren't interested in launching imitations. They're not looking to be even lower-cost suppliers or sub-contractors to a WalMart or HP or JPMorganChase. They want to be valued as much for their ingenuity as for their prices.

Consequently, they appear particularly open to ideas and experimentation. They know they lag so they'll grasp any reasonable innovation edge they can. Measured by brainpower and grit, there's no reason why BRIC enterprises shouldn't consistently out-innovate their richer rivals. Money isn't the vital variable holding them back. So what's the issue?

Read about the BRIC cultural flaws….

Tip of the Hat to  Pierre Levy at LinkedIn.

NIGHTWATCH Extract: East Prepares for Big War

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, Government, Military, Officers Call, Strategy

India-Russia: India will buy 250 to 300 advanced stealth fighter aircraft from Russian, according to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, as he announced the deal worth nearly $30 billion. Antony and Russian Defense Minister Serdyukov said Russia would supply the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) as well as 45 transport aircraft. India also will jointly manufacture the fighters under license for ten years.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The future of the Indian Air Force appears to be linked primarily to Russian rather than US firms. This agreement thinly hides an Indian strategic judgment about the threats it faces from China and Pakistan, about the US as a supplier for coping with those threats compared to the Russians.

India is making long term preparations to be ready for a major war after ten years that will require fifth generation fighters because the most likely enemy – presumably China – also will have those air capabilities. The Russians are willing to sell India the aircraft and to license the technology. The US is not building significant numbers of fifth generation fighters and will not sell them even to Israel.

The Indians, Russians and Chinese do not share the US strategic outlook favoring small wars and counterinsurgency forces.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Since the mid-1990's, when the best minds associated with the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute turned decisively away from the two-major theater war model, and we presented the 1+iii (One Plus Triple Eye) strategy, the US has been incoherent with respect to strategic policy, acquisition, and operations.  Ideology is not a substitute for intelligence, and technology is not a substitute for thinking.

See Also:

Graphic: Four Forces After Next (from 1993-1995)

2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Restrospective

2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security

2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making

1998 JFQ The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate

1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information

1993 On Defense & Intelligence–The Grand Vision

and some graphics….

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: East Prepares for Big War”

CrisisWatch Report N°86, 1 October 2010

03 India, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, CrisisWatch reports
report link

Seven actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and none improved in September 2010, according to the latest issue of the International Crisis Group's monthly bulletin CrisisWatch, released today.

Guinea saw increased political and ethnic divisions, exacerbated by controversies related to the presidential elections. Two days of violent clashes in the capital between rival supporters of the two presidential candidates, Alpha Conde and Cellou Diallo, left one person dead and dozens injured. Continued delays in the timing of the run-off and Diallo's rejection of the appointment of the election commission's new head led to further tensions between the two camps.

In Sri Lanka moves by President Rajapaksa to consolidate his power through a de facto constitutional coup transformed the political terrain. On 8 September the parliament passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives the President nearly unbridled power by scrapping term limits on the presidency, abolishing the Constitutional Court and allowing the President to appoint directly officials to the judiciary, police and electoral bodies.

Continue reading “CrisisWatch Report N°86, 1 October 2010”